Highlights of her pre-Great War career included helping suppress the Sokehs Rebellion in the Caroline Islands and winning the Kaiser's Schießpreis (Shooting Prize) for excellent gunnery in the East Asia Squadron. 

Emden spent the first half of 1914 cruising Chinese and Japanese waters. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Emden was the only German cruiser in Qingdao, as Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were cruising in the South Pacific, while Leipzig was en route to replace Nürnberg off the coast of Mexico. With war just days away, Müller put to sea on July 31th, to begin commerce raiding, once war had been formally declared. Two days later, on 2 August, Germany declared war on Russia, and the following day, Emden captured the Russian steamer Ryazan. The Russian vessel was sent back to Qingdao, and converted into the auxiliary cruiser Cormoran.

On 5 August, Spee ordered Müller to join him at Pagan Island in the Mariana Islands. Emden rendezvoused with the squadron on August 12th. The next day, Spee learned that Japan would enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente and had dispatched a fleet to track his squadron down.  Based on this information, Spee decided to take the East Asia Squadron to South America, where it could attempt to break through to Germany, harassing British merchant traffic along the way.   At this point, Müller suggested that one cruiser be detached for independent operations in the Indian Ocean, since the squadron would be unable to attack British shipping while it was crossing the Pacific. Spee agreed, and allowed Müller to operate independently, since Emden was the fastest cruiser in the squadron. On August 14th, Emden parted ways with Spee's squadron, and began her epic cruise. 

Over a raiding career spanning three months and 30,000 nautical miles, Emden destroyed two Allied warships and sank or captured sixteen British steamers and one Russian merchant ship, totaling 70,825 tons. Another four British ships were captured and released, and one British and one Greek ship were used as colliers. 

Emden met her end, at the hands of the Australian cruiser Sydney, which caught her off the Cocos Islands, where Emden had sent ashore a landing party, in hopes of wrecking the British port facilities.  Sydney's more powerful weapons wrecked havoc on Emden, forcing Müller to ground his ship.  Of a crew of 376, 133 lost their lives in the battle.  The beached wreck was mostly broken up by wave action, until what remained was broken up for scrap in the 1950's. 

For more on Emden, visit her Wikipedia page here, which is where this abridged history was pulled from.

This version of Flyhawk’s 1/700 SMS Emden is the "First Run, Limited Edition" version, which comes in a dark cardboard box with artwork showing a white and buff Emden cruising off a tropical island. 

Inside the box is a copy of the box art that is suitable for framing.  The hull, deck and waterline plate are wrapped in a thin white material, while the sprues are in various plastic bags.  At the bottom of the box are the directions, decals, and more - as this is the "Limited Edition" release of Emden, there are photo-etch and 3D printed parts included. 

SPRUE A - FORWARD DECK
The first of two decks, this includes the Fo'c'sle and well deck.  The forward section is molded to represent a linoleum deck, with planking on the deck where the forward guns sit. The amidships/well deck is planked, with lots of coal scuttles. Detail on this part is up the usual Flyhawk standards, with subtle strips holding down the linoleum, nice planking and other finely done details, like the capstans.  Anchor chain is molded to the deck.  It doesn't look bad, but some may want to scrape it off and replace it with aftermarket parts. 

SPRUE B - AFT DECK
The detail here is similar to the fo'c'sle above - linoleum with planking around the guns.  There is also a skylight and bollards. 

SPRUE C - LOWER HULL
The lower hull has detailed torpedo tube doors, some hull plating and bilge keels.

SPRUE D - WATERLINE PLATE
Not much to say here. 

SPRUE E - UPPER HULL
The upper hull is in two halves.  There is hull plating with butt straps, finely done vertical ladders, portholes with eyebrows, hatches, chocks and more bollards - these latter items are molded as part of the hull halves.  The hulls scales our pretty much perfectly in length and beam. 

This is Flyhawk’s 1/700 SMS Emden, kit number FH1306S. The kit retails for around $69.00, but can be found for less than that.  This review sample is courtesy of my wallet - I picked mine up from the Squadron/FreeTime conglomerate.

This is an in box review only, your mileage may vary once you start assembly.